A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO became the new record-holder for the highest price ever paid for a car at an auction when it was sold for $34.65 million but with the “buyer’s premium” added in, was officially sold for $38.1 million at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta was one of only 36 built between 1961-64 and designed as front-engine racers – a practice Ferrari abandoned in 1965 when they began producing the mid-engine 250 LM.
This particular Ferrari 250 GTO was originally owned by French Olympic ski champion Henri Oreiller who had won three medals [two golds and a bronze] at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. When Oreiller retired from competitive skiing, he took up competitive racing and won two races in 1959 before a crash – caused by a tire blowout at an estimated 100mph that flipped his new 250 GTO and tossed him out of the car – killed him in a race at Linas-Montlhery in October 1962. Ferrari rebuilt the car and it was raced two more years before subsequently being purchased by Fabrizio Violati, a son in a successful Italian agricultural family for a mere $4000. Violati was the car’s final owner until his death in 2010.
The car is the second-most expensive vintage car sold, behind another 1962 Ferrari GTO which sold for $52 million last year in a private transaction.